Welcome back Regulars! In case you missed it, recently Colorado and Washington legalized the recreational use of marijuana. As you can imagine, this prompted the opening of a ton of stores that now sell marijuana. The increase in marijuana in the media also opened up the door for marijuana based/referenced products.

Deciding to ride the hype pipe, Washington based brewer Red Hook (they also have a location in New Hampshire) thought they would brew a beer made with hemp! In Washington State their brew has been rolled out but elsewhere it has been met with some resistance.

Oddly, the beer isn’t the problem. Their label and promotion are the issue. The beer is called ‘Joint Effort’ as it was a collaboration with another local brewery, Hillard’s. Needless to say that there are numerous references to pot on the label and the tap handles are made from actual bongs. The description on Red Hook’s website reads, “Joint Effort has a dank, resinous hop aroma balanced by nutty, earthiness from hemp seeds. It’s the perfect brew for sitting around with your bud, grabbing some munchies and enjoying a beer.” Sorry we won’t be able to celebrate with those in Washington as the FDA has shot down the label so local distributors will not be bringing this brew to us anytime soon.

Reading the news about Red Hook got me thinking about these new regulations in place in Washington and Colorado. I started wondering if this would hurt the local bar and beer industry at all. Instead of going out and grabbing a 6 pack of craft beer, then heading home and cracking them open with your buds are people going to grab a 1/2 ounce of pot and then go home and spoke their bud with their buds? I have a feeling that this is already happening.

It’s basically what a lot of people did in college and who doesn’t want to relive their college days? Bars and brewers may lose some business to some newly converted potheads, but who won’t be losing are the Papa Johns franchises throughout the Colorado area. Peyton Manning must be one happy guy, oh and breaking all of those records and being in the NFL Playoffs must be pretty sweet as well.

Discussion (4) ¬

I’d suspect that the legality of recreational pot won’t necessarily increase the number of those who smoke pot, rather, it will decrease the number of those who smoke pot who go to court, pay fines, and/or end up in jail. People who want to smoke pot, will smoke pot – legal or not.

Regarding the FDA and their regulations on labeling, if they really cared about protecting the public they’d put the same warnings they put on cigarettes on alcoholic beverages, junk food, and just about any hedonistic pleasure we produce. Sometimes people just want to have a good time, and they don’t care if some lab rat died from eating too much aspartame or if some bunsen burner butthole claims 4oz of wine per day is healthy while 40oz of wine is bad. People want what they want, and if the government gets in the way of that, our true ingenuity is shown as people will find a way to enjoy this little bit of freedom we have.